Prove There is no God

“I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us”.                    

John Lennon

I agree with John Lennon that one of the biggest mistakes we have made has been to ascribe human qualities to a deity we don’t know. While this has made it easier for people to identify with the deity, it may well have created massive divisions between believers and those who do not believe.

A university friend and reader commented on my series of articles on religious fascism by asking, as an atheist, why is it that few of these God-fearing followers never question the fact that if there is a supreme being why does God allow genocide, persecution, and all the other evils that plague our lives?

His question is common among non-believers.

Free will is a product of our evolution, not of “God’s will” and God has nothing to do with these evils.

Many atheist friends often ask me to prove that there is a God. I would like to ask them to prove to me that there isn’t a God.

To start with, let’s explore the universe!

The universe is ruled by mathematical, physical, chemical, and biological laws that govern all existence. Laws are created and implemented, and the structural order of the universe is not an accident. It has been produced by something and is managed by something.

Some will claim that the universe is the product of a “big bang” – a moment when nothing exploded into something and began a process of evolution that has led to the universe that continues to grow.

My question is that, in a universe in which energy can neither be created nor destroyed, how could nothing become something without a guiding hand? Without something giving it form and energy to expand and evolve.

How could inert matter become living organisms without there being some cause. What is the energy that converted miasma into living cells?

How could a universe evolve from nothing to humans today, and who knows how many other forms of sentient life across the universe?

Some might argue that the creation of artificial intelligence proves that intelligence can be created.

Created is the operative word.

If I were to tell an atheist that the computer on which they are reading this article is a product of evolution, produced out of nothing by no one, would they believe me? Was the smartphone on which some of you are reading this article the product of happenstance, or was it carefully designed, and its production managed?

Yet atheists believe that the universe in general and human beings in particular are the product of evolutionary accidents with no architect or engineer guiding the production of bodies and minds.

It takes humans to create artificial intelligence.

Someday soon artificial intelligence may well have the ability to develop original intelligent thought and not just pull knowledge out of cyberspace.

But, like human beings, the machines and their programs will have been created. And that creation will require one or more set of hands, brains, and imagination to produce the result.

That is why I agree with John Lennon that God is not an anthropomorphic creation.

The God celebrated by most religions is the creation of human beings dating back eons ago through which they sought to understand a complex universe with their limited knowledge. It was easier to create a God with superhuman qualities than a deity that was and is a universal creative energy upon which all things rely for their existence.

The creative energy that governs all that exists has no human form or qualities.

It is neither good nor bad, angry nor vengeful, loving or kind.

God, or whatever you want to call this creative force, simply is what God is.

And I look forward to readers proving this otherwise.

CONCLUSION:

William Shakespeare once wrote “Hell is empty, and all the devils are here”.

Readers may wonder why I move from political analysis to a search for God in some of my columns. The search for God and the definition of God is the source of much good in history, but also the source of much evil given the hundreds of millions of murders carried out throughout history in “God’s” name.

Today we face many forms of religious fascism that are posing a major threat to civilization as we know it. We have to be ready to confront them, fight them, and defest them if human civilization is to survive and provide our descendents with a world based on love and reason.

The best way to do so is through the ballot box where that is possible. If not, things may get difficult and violent confrontation may be necessary. Defeating the negative requires the combined wills of all of us in order to win the battle and ensure a world in which any concept of “God” results in positive societies in which the fundamental concept of God whatever definition we arrive at brings peace and joy to all.